D&D 5E "Damage on a miss" poll.

[herrozerro]

Speak for yourself. I certainly loath this need for artificial coolness and I am pretty sure I am not alone with that.

I didn't think I was speaking for myself, but rather just pointing out the issues in any media with pretty much any kind of accurate portrayal of a field.

 

[Celebrim]

Not wading through the rhetoric; just responding to the OP's request.

Why do I find damage on a miss believable?

First of all, Mike Mearls has clearly stated what hit points represent: "Hit points represent an element of physical wear that involves a combination of fatigue and physical injury. As you take more damage, you have more evident wounds"

So, Mearls adheres to the classic Gygaxian definition as well. Yes, hit points are 'meat' + something else, but damage always represents at least some wounds (along with depleting something else).

But I can go one better. Gygax has imagined better than Mearls what that 'something else' is, and you describe it very well in your martial arts experience.

In fact it is also true that I have suffered physical injury on a miss. I assume that if an attack is blocked, then it counts as a miss...

There is your broken assumption. If an attack is blocked, it implies that a fighter - as an act of skill - took a blow that was meant for his vitals or head on the side of the arm or hand or whatever (or shield, sword, or armor), and so partially dissipated it and took less damage as a result. This is EXACTLY how Gygax described hit points. The fighter knew exactly how to move to reduce the damage of an attack that otherwise would have been lethal or crippling. What you are describing isn't a 'miss'. You are describing a 'hit', albeit a hit against someone with more than a few hit points and so does less than critical damage.

In fact, you are deep in to describing pretty much exactly how hits against high point fighters need to be narrated.

and it is absolutely true that I have seen physical injury -- bruising, torn muscles, that sort of thing. I think I once got a broken rib when a blocked kick smashed by fist into my chest. I know I entered the fight without a broken rib, and only dropped a point, so odds are I suffered the break on a "missed attack"

No. That's a hit too. But, presumably it's less of a hit than would have been suffered had you completely exposed yourself and took the full force of a gastrizien kick against your ribs. Again, what you are describing here is that you have more hit points than a guy who can't defend himself well. And presumably, someone with even more hit points would have blocked that blow even more sufficiently, and sustained even less of an injury.

A miss is win the blow either a) doesn't land, b) or is blocked to an extent that it does no lasting harm.

Sadly, I have even been seen people defeated by misses -- one guy so exhausted and bruised up he dropped to the floor and was unable to continue.

And again, under the hit point model this is exactly what we'd expect. It isn't necessarily the biggest blow that drops you; it's the last.

If you want something unrealistic, a much easier target is the fact that a guy with a dagger doing d4+0 cannot possibly kill someone with 30 hit points no matter how good an attack he does and no matter how bad a defense the other guys does. Given that HUGE level of unrealism in combat, damage on a miss seems a pretty minor thing to worry about.

A sleeping figure with 30 hit points has been killable with a dagger in every edition of the game I've played. But the whole point of 30 hit points is that it represents a guy that never has such a bad defense that he lets a knife make a lethal wound until he's worn down. He's only killable with a knife when he's completely defenseless. Is that completely realistic? No, probably not. But you have to begin with the assumptions of the system if you want to understand the system.

 

[Ell-Egypto]

TL;DR:

giving damage after a near miss is bad idea.
OK at first level, who cares, but later on at high levels,
feats or bennies will stack and extras and magic items will kick in
and soon it won't matter if you rolled dice or not:
"I stood next to the spellcaster, looking at him, and then he died, m'lord"

 

[Burninator]

TL;DR:

giving damage after a near miss is bad idea.
OK at first level, who cares, but later on at high levels,
feats or bennies will stack and extras and magic items will kick in
and soon it won't matter if you rolled dice or not:
"I stood next to the spellcaster, looking at him, and then he died, m'lord"

And we all know more and more damage bonuses will be added to the game over time, since to-hit bonuses will be scarce, as a way to keep up player DPR, especially for those classes that don't rely on multiattacks.

Every one of those damage bonuses will need to be worked "just so", to avoid stacking with this. Otherwise, as you say, just walking over to the foe will have them be dead, with no agency of the dice.

It's one thing for a 20th level evoker wizard to have an at-will fireball that auto-kills any creature under 3 HP on a successful save. It's quite another for a 1st level fighter to do that, with no save at all.

As soon as their stuff beings to stack up, fighters will easily be mopping up foes and removing them from the board on command. That level of precise control of removing pieces from the board, every round is insane.

They didn't make 5e's Magic Missile a cantrip for a reason. And this is better. It's a no-action cantrip on top of the fighter's usual attack routine, with no extra cost in terms of action economy. The end result of such an ability will be eventually boredom, at best, and vexation and frustration at worst.

Feedback showed that auto-success and auto-fail were not popular. Putting that into the attack routine of 3 core PHB classes is going against everything else the game stands for and has been vetted.

-People vetted Advantage / Disadvantage, they generally loved it : this mechanic bypasses it and makes gaining advantage, or having disadvantage imposed upon you by your circumstances, irrelevant. I.e. you could be prone, blind-folded and attacking invisible tiny flying creatures and you will kill them automatically with your huge, heavy, slow axe each and every time. Player fiat, overruling common sense and the rest of the combat rules

-People vetted Bounded Accuracy : this mechanic bypasses AC, so makes BA irrelevant.

-People vetted weapon damage die mattering in attack rolls via D6 expertise dice -> Deadly Strike -> Multiple attacks : this mechanic doesn't even consider magic weapons' bonuses, let alone mundane damage differences. If you're so great with using two-hands to attack with, why aren't you improved with magic weapons? Kind of removes the fun out of a fighting style catering to "Great Weapons", when it doesn't benefit from a greater weapon (greatsword / greataxe) vs lesser ones (longsword used two-handed)

 

[Weather Report]

This is an issue with any kind of media

...hand-to-hand combat...ain't always media...

 

[herrozerro]

...hand-to-hand combat...ain't always media...

I don't know what you are talking about here.

What I am saying is that any media representation of a field. Books, Movies, TV, Video games and even pen and paper RPGs. All of these suffer from the issue I mentioned earlier.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Not wading through the rhetoric; just responding to the OP's request.

Why do I find damage on a miss believable?

First of all, Mike Mearls has clearly stated what hit points represent: "Hit points represent an element of physical wear that involves a combination of fatigue and physical injury. As you take more damage, you have more evident wounds"

So, the question can be restated thus:

Why do I find a combination of fatigue and physical injury on a miss believable?

The reason is because I have personally experienced it. I have fought at martial arts competitions locally and nationally, and absolutely it makes complete sense to me that avoiding an attack (and thus causing it to miss) will increase my fatigue.

In fact it is also true that I have suffered physical injury on a miss. I assume that if an attack is blocked, then it counts as a miss, and it is absolutely true that I have seen physical injury -- bruising, torn muscles, that sort of thing. I think I once got a broken rib when a blocked kick smashed by fist into my chest. I know I entered the fight without a broken rib, and only dropped a point, so odds are I suffered the break on a "missed attack"

Sadly, I have even been seen people defeated by misses -- one guy so exhausted and bruised up he dropped to the floor and was unable to continue.

If you have the view that a miss is something that never causes damage, then by definition this mechanic is not believable, but enough other stuff in the game causes damage on a miss that you cannot make that general statement for D&D. It's pretty clear that, speaking very generally, damage can occur on something classified a miss.

D&D is a mostly binary system. Criticals and Fumbles blur the line a little, but most modern games (and quite a few old D&D spells) have a more smoothed approach where you can fail, but have a little effect. That is all this mechanic is -- a failure to do a significant hit, but it still wears out the opposition a bit. Given that I have seen that happen a lot in real life, it definitely seems realistic to me.

If you want something unrealistic, a much easier target is the fact that a guy with a dagger doing d4+0 cannot possibly kill someone with 30 hit points no matter how good an attack he does and no matter how bad a defense the other guys does. Given that HUGE level of unrealism in combat, damage on a miss seems a pretty minor thing to worry about.

As has already been stated. If you try and put fatigue into the picture then each swing should be causing the fighter to lose hit points.

Mike Mearls has probably never faught before in his life. I too currently practice, and compete in martial arts and I can tell you that fatigue does not bring you closer to death by any means. Ever worn loads of gear like a heavy backpack etc..? Imagine someone carrying a full knapsack, armour, big ass weapon, and other things. He is engaged in battle fighting for his life. How fatigued do you think he is going to get, especially when fighting against some who is quick on their feet and has a lot less gear.

Mearls trying to spin logic on this is like trying to tell someone about what it's like in outer space just because you read about it.

 

[athos]

Discuss the poll and explain why you made the choice you did. If you don't want to explain it, that's okay as well.

I think damage on a miss doesn't make sense, unless it is a grenade or some kind of splash weapon or effect that sprays an area on a miss.

 

[Mistwell]

But there is no real debate

Yes, there is. Some people disagree with you on this topic. Their personal opinion is exactly as equal to your personal opinion. Period. This is a fact you need to accept.

I don't even want it as an option anywhere, I want it purged from the rules like the insult to reason that it is.

Tough. You don't get to tell others they are having badwrongfun. There is not just one way to enjoy this game. Some people like damage on a miss, others do not. It will likely be an option. You do not get to exclude a playstle you dislike purely because you feel passionate about the rightness of your opinion. Because you're just expressing an opinion, one others disagree with.

The majority (if it indeed it, this pool seems to contradict that) can be wrong.

On a matter of opinion, concerning a game rule where both types of rules function OK for certain groups of people, there is no real right or wrong. It's just a game rule on that level. The majority are by definition right about their opinion, just as the minority are right about their opinion. Everyone's opinion is right concerning a game rule that can function either way. The game will likely at least have an option somewhere to have damage on a miss, and it will be right to include that as an option, because a material number of people like it. Deal with it, or not. But, that is likely the way things will be. Lots of people played with that rule and liked it for half a decade now (and longer if they didn't care about the "it's magic" excuse for some spells auto-hitting even on a miss). They can continue to enjoy it, just as you can continue to enjoy the game without that rule.

And that's OK. It's OK that some people play the game a bit different than you. We're all D&D players, regardless of our view of this one tiny rule.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Yes, there is. Some people disagree with you on this topic. Their personal opinion is exactly as equal to your personal opinion. Period. This is a fact you need to accept.

That's true, but a debate requires two sides. I don't see anyone really arguing his (or my, or [MENTION=91812]ForeverSlayer[/MENTION] 's) points.